


all's fair in love and war (but that doesn't mean either of us wins)

by CallMeBombshell



Series: the games of gods [1]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Top!Stiles, bottom!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:46:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something about Stiles here, in Derek’s rooms, the fading light of Helios’s flaming chariot shining gold and red across Stiles’ face. The grin stretching his mouth is sly and amused, eyes burning hot and dark as he stares at Derek. There’s challenge in his gaze, a taunt in the twist of his lips: they both know how this goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all's fair in love and war (but that doesn't mean either of us wins)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SordidCrayons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SordidCrayons/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Speed vs Strength (he'll always lose)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/543005) by [SordidCrayons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SordidCrayons/pseuds/SordidCrayons). 



It goes like this:

Derek swings his sword, steel blade flashing, trailing ribbons of red blood through the air. His face is spattered with it, the edges of his tunic soaked and dripping. A man’s guts pool at his feet, foul-smelling and slick between his toes. Derek lifts a hand to card through his hair, grinning when he feels it stiff and sticky with blood and bits of bone.

Let other people revile him for what he is, for the delight he finds in slaughter and mayhem, blood and ichor and the fear-stench of men beneath his sword. Let others shy from him, their eyes hard and judging. He is what he was made to be; he has never claimed to be anything else.

By the time the battle is done, the blood is drying on his skin, cracked and flaking into his eyes when he moves, but he knows better than to clean it away. It does good, he thinks, for men to see him as he should be: tall and dark and terrible, trembling with rage and excitement and battle-fury, backlit by the sun and dripping crimson into the earth. So often they forget, his warriors, lost in the red haze of bloodlust that he gives them, and they forget that they are still mortals, favoured though they may be. It does them good to remember that no matter how many enemies they slay, no matter how many battles they win in his name, his will always be a far greater power than anything they could ever imagine.

Derek’s rooms on Olympus are cold when he returns, but he welcomes it. His blood is running hot in his veins, his hands still trembling with the urge to grip his sword and let it sing through bone and flesh. The stone tiles are cool against his feet and the breeze through the open windows blows cold across the sweat-slicked skin of his neck and arms. 

_A God should not sweat_ , he’s been told before, but he never listens. It’s an affectation, of course, something mortal that he allows himself. But he cannot help but revel in the slide of it against his skin, the smell and the taste of it against his tongue, salty and wet like blood.

He disrobes slowly, peeling away his stained layers and leaving them where they fall. Isaac has left him a bowl and a cloth to clean with, and wine on the window sill to quench his thirst, but the cupbearer himself is nowhere to be seen. He understands, Derek thinks, crossing the room. Isaac may not be powerful by Godly standards, or especially talented. But he is discreet and thorough and he pays attention. Derek has no doubt that Isaac knows exactly what happens in these rooms after he performs his duties and disappears again, leaving Derek to himself and his blood-soaked clothes and the open windows.

Derek’s down to his loincloth, left for modesty’s sake if for no other reason, and he’s only just begun to wipe away the gore when he hears the whisper on the wind, the rustle of feathers behind him and the slight rasp of the curtains as they move. 

He smiles, going still and silent, the better to listen for the tiny sounds of movement behind him, the only warning he ever gets. 

His blood, finally slowing as the battle-rush leaves him, begins to rush through his veins again. He can hear his heart pounding, the thrumming beneath his skin that reminds him of violence and battle, but instead of drawing red and rage across his eyes, it pools hot in his gut, his hands craving flesh to press against and bruise but not to cleave or rend.

“Well don’t stop on my account,” the voice says, and the sound of it is honey and warm, slipping through the air between them like blood between Derek’s fingers. Derek turns, smirk in place and rolling his eyes.

Stiles is beautiful. To be fair, he’s always beautiful, golden eyes and dark hair and fair skin, long fingers and pink lips like his cousin’s bow. There are some in Olympus who call him to take messages just so they can spend a few minutes looking at him without inciting his father’s anger. 

Derek wonders, sometimes, what it means that Derek has no such fear of the King of Olympus. No, his fears are all twined with the young God standing before him.

But there’s something about Stiles here, in Derek’s rooms, the fading light of Helios’s flaming chariot shining gold and red across Stiles’ face. The grin stretching his mouth is sly and amused, eyes burning hot and dark as he stares at Derek. There’s challenge in his gaze, a taunt in the twist of his lips: they both know how this goes.

This is the one battle that Derek is happy to lose.

They banter, easy words across the space between them, growing smaller as Stiles comes closer, stopping just behind Derek. His hands are warm when they take the cloth from Derek’s, sparking hotter against his skin as he drags the cloth across Derek’s chest. Derek feels his breath hitch in his chest when he feels Stiles’ clever fingers slip higher, twisting at his nipples. 

Derek lets his head fall back against Stiles’ shoulder as Stiles’ hands drop lower, but he doesn’t turn his head to look at him. Stiles unties Derek’s loincloth, letting it fall to the floor as he reaches around, gripping hot and tight at Derek’s shaft, hard and aching and red against Stiles’ pale hand, and Derek feels his breath leave him in a shuddering exhale.

These are the rules: once they begin this game, they do not look.

They do not touch, except what Stiles allows.

They do not talk.

Stiles brings him to the brink and eases him back, laughing softly in his ear as Derek’s hands flex at his sides, gritting his teeth in an effort to resist the urge to grab at Stiles, to dig his nails into his thigh and beg him to get on with it, to give Derek some release. He’s a God, after all; he will always have more to give.

Stiles brings him nearly to the brink of release, hand moving slow and slick along Derek’s shaft, fingers playing across the head in time to his heartbeat, and Derek feels surrounded. He can feel Stiles’ breath across the back of his neck, can almost taste him in the air around them, can feel the heat of him behind him in a long line across his back. He’s shaking, trying not to whimper behind the hard clench of his jaw, when Stiles moves.

Stiles turns him quickly, the room spinning around Derk at the suddenness of it. He barely has time to mourn the loss of Stiles’ long fingers around him before Stiles is pushing at him, shoving him down onto the bed. Derek bounces once on the thick mattress and then Stiles is there, knees bracketing Derek’s thighs, long fingers gripping Derek’s wrists and pushing him into the mattress. 

The grin on Stiles’ face is wicked, dark and liquid and beautiful, and Derek feels lightheaded in a way the he never knew, before, that Gods could feel. Stiles doesn’t notice, just bends low to press his face into the join of Derek’s neck and shoulder. His tongue flicks out, tasting at the sweat collected there; it makes Derek shiver. Stiles settles, sliding along Derek’s body until they’re pressed together from chest to thigh, Stiles grinding down against him in little hard thrusts. If Derek turned, he could kiss Stiles’ cheek, could nip at the soft flesh of his ear, could bury his face against the long, pale column of Stiles’ neck. 

He closes his eyes again.

Stiles takes him apart slowly, inch by tortuous inch. He runs his fingers over every part of Derek’s body, follows invisible lines across his skin with his tongue. He opens Derek up with slow, slender fingers, one at a time until Derek feels so full he thinks he might burst, and he knows there’s still more to come. Stiles isn’t gentle, hard thrusts and the vicious twist of his fingers that Derek dreams about sometimes.

When Stiles finally enters him, he does it with a single hard push, shoving Derek’s body farther up the bed and making him keen loudly, hands fisting in the blankets and his back bowing, all the air forced from his lungs as he gasps, tries to remember how to breath.

He’s a God; he shouldn’t feel like he could die from this.

Stiles takes his time with this, too, setting into a rhythm, hard and slow and perfect. Pleasure sparks across Derek’s vision and he feels his voice break, raw and broken and terrifyingly mortal. Stiles curls behind him, wrapping one arm low around Derek’s waist and the other high across his ribs, hands clenching at Derek’s collarbone like he wants to wrap it around Derek’s throat.

He tightens his hold and levers them up, forcing Derek to spread his thighs to keep balance, leaning back against Stiles’ chest as Stiles pounds into him, the hand at his hip shoving Derek down against him with every stroke. Stiles’ breath behind him quickens, his heart pounding so hard that Derek can feel it against his shoulder.

Derek is shaking, vision gone nearly blind from pleasure, blood singing like lightning beneath his skin, when Stiles finally takes hold of him again, hand burning hot as he squeezes tight on Derek’s aching shaft. Stiles gives him a few tugs, grinning into the back of Derek’s neck when it drags a broken moan from Derek’s throat. Stiles nips at him, his hand speeding up in time with his thrusts. It only takes a few moments and then...

Derek shouts, his vision going white, his blood rushing in his ears; he feels like he’s exploding, his body too small to contain him, his skin too tight under the wave of white-hot pleasure drowning him.

Distantly, he hears Stiles’ choked-off shout, feels his arms wrap around him like a vice grip. Derek shudders, feeling the echoes of his release rocking through him, feels the counterpoint trembling wracking Stiles’ body as he shakes through his own release. His cock jerks inside Derek, sending sparks of new pleasure dancing down his spine and he feels the warm rush of Stiles’ seed spilling inside him. 

Derek lets himself fall backward, boneless, content to let Stiles be the only thing keeping him upright. Stiles chest heaves behind him for long moments, his breath gusting across Derek’s neck and shoulders. Finally he leans back, tipping them both onto their sides. They lie together, Stiles’ arms still wrapped around Derek and his chest pressed close to Derek’s back.

The room is quiet, the only sound their harsh, panting breaths.

Stiles rouses first, as he always does. There are words on his lips about a message, about needing to be somewhere else, and Derek lets him say them, doesn’t interrupt although he desperately wishes that he could. There is something like apology in Stiles’ voice, but Derek doesn’t let himself dwell on it. It doesn’t mean what he wants it to mean. He doesn’t blame Stiles for that.

Derek is the God of War. He is a man whom others might lust after, tall and dark and handsome, if one overlooks the darkness in his eyes, the too-sharp cut of his smile and the way his knuckles are eternally stained red with blood. He is a man whom mortal men pray to for blood, for rage and bravery, for victory and for justice. 

He is not a man whom people fall in love with.

He is not so naive as to believe that he is the sole embodiment of battle and violence. He is not so arrogant to believe that there are no others who delight in the warm rush of blood and the crunch of bone and the red haze or battle; there are simply no others who desire it quite the way he does. There is something in Stiles’ eyes when he comes to Derek like this that makes him think that maybe Stiles understands it better than most.

There was a time, at the beginning of this thing between them, when he believed that he could see worry in Stiles’ eyes, could see concern for him the the weight of Stiles’ gaze. There are times now when he still thinks that he catches flashes of it, but it’s buried deep under pleasure and lust, for Derek’s body and for blood. If there is any concern in their violent couplings, it is in Stiles’ hands after, the way his fingers never leave Derek’s skin, the way his arms stay wrapped around him even after they’ve caught their breath and are lying there in the dark and the silence.

In the dark and the silence, Derek can let himself believe that they truly are lovers.

In the dark and the silence, Derek can pretend that he can keep Stiles.

He doesn’t watch Stiles leave. He lies in the bed, thighs spread and sticky, arm thrown across his eyes as he listens to the whisper of feathers as Stiles slips out through the window again, leaving Derek behind with a kiss burning on his cheek and a clever quip about the next day’s battle.

He doesn’t say goodbye.

It would be easier, Derek thinks, if they could speak to one another. There are things that Derek would say if he knew how, if he could find the words to tell Stiles how beautiful he is, how much Derek loves the feel of him against his body, inside him. He wants to ask Stiles to stay, wants to fall asleep with Stiles’ arms around him like a shield, wants to wake to the heat of Stiles still there beside him. 

But Derek has never known how to say anything that could not be said with the bright flash of steel and the red answer of blood. He could give speeches with the bodies he leaves behind him, the stench of hot blood against his skin, the thick caking of gore across his shield. His blade sings in his hands and he sings with it.

He would kill a hundred men for Stiles, a thousand, a million. He would spill the seas red with blood tomorrow if it meant that he could keep Stiles, even for one night. But while Derek might belong to Stiles, Stiles does not belong to him, and Derek has no words with which to capture him.

And Stiles is no better. He grips hard at Derek when he can, tightens his hold and hates to let him go. But he never leaves a mark, never presses bruises into Derek’s thighs or his wrists the way Derek wishes he would. There are times when he looks at Derek, looks that Derek catches without meaning to, and Stiles’ eyes are so soft, his gaze lingering on Derek’s lips or his fingers or the hollow of his throat, and Derek thinks that Stiles wants to stay.

But for all that Stiles is good with words, he rarely uses them for himself. He recites the words of others, all eloquence and sarcasm and wit, but they’re all for other people. He carries love letters and threats, reports and gossip, and smiles, always smiles when he speaks. 

Derek has watched him in the past, eyes fixed on Stiles across his Zeus’s great hall at the top of the mountain as he spoke with his father. Stiles can deliver whole messages with just his face, and yet he turns away every time he’s with Derek, holds himself behind and never lets Derek see his face once they’ve begun, and there are time when Derek has to wonder what it is that Stiles doesn’t want him to see.

Alone in his bed, Derek closes his eyes and let his hands drift down his chest, imagining Stiles’ hands in their place. In the dark, he lets himself imagine Stiles above him, their eyes locked as Stiles digs in with his nails and scratches deep, leaving raised red marks that will take time to fade. Derek imagines Stiles’ mouth sucking bruises into his neck and across his chest, dark, angry marks for Derek to wear proudly into battle the next day; he imagines Stiles coming to him later and cleaning the blood from them so he can put his mouth back on them, keeping them fresh and visible until they become permanent.

In the dark, Derek dreams of Stiles and wishes he had a God to pray to for the courage to reach out and _hold_.

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thank you to SordidCrayons, who let me play in her awesome world :D Definitely go check out the fic that inspired this one, [Speed vs Strength (he'll always lose)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/543005), which is AMAZING <3 and check out the rest of the series as well!


End file.
